Week 4: Preparing For UCONN And Winning The AAC

The USF Bulls are on a two-game slide after their season-opening victory over Western Carolina. Not the best way to head into your first conference game of the season, for sure. But head coach Willie Taggart isn’t worried. In fact, he’s down right excited to face UCONN this Friday night and says bringing a conference championship to USF for the first time in school history would be special.

“That’s something we’ve never done here before, that’s what I’m excited about,” Taggart said with a big grin on his face Tuesday afternoon. “We got an opportunity to do that and be the first to do something like that.”

Leading tackler, junior cornerback Jamie Byrd, says this team has a lot to prove heading into their game against the Huskies.

“We’re 1-2 right now so we got a lot to prove, especially with it being our first conference game,” Byrd said Tuesday. “We plan on winning this conference so we plan on being 1-0 in the conference.”

Putting last week’s ugly 49-17 loss to the NC State Wolfpack behind them, the Bulls are working to correct the mistakes across the board but especially on defense. The Bulls were among the nation’s leaders in takeaways through the first two weeks but struggled to stop a potent NC State offense last week.

Heading into Friday’s game, Coach Taggart says he wants to see more toughness, especially on offense and up front with the offensive line where he says the most experience lies.

“You gotta wanna come off the ball and rattle the fillings in that guy’s mouth,” Taggart said. “You gotta wanna come off and just go after him and it’s all a mentality.”

The Bulls will be without their star WR Andre Davis, once again, on Friday night but Taggart says junior guard Thor Jozwiak practiced this week and should be ready to go to help beef up a struggling offensive line.

Kickoff between the USF Bulls (1-2) and the UCONN Huskies (1-2) is set for 8:00 PM at Raymond James Stadium.